Challenges For Legislators

November 3, 2004

Florida voters dodged one constitutional amendment "bullet," but the approval of several other amendments should prompt the Legislature to act next year, particularly in addressing the medical malpractice crisis.

Sunshine State residents corrected a past mistake. They repealed a previously approved constitutional amendment forcing the state into a costly boondoggle: Spending at least $20 billion to build a high-speed train.

The so-called "bullet train" would have been a colossal drain on the state's treasury, while failing to alleviate congestion on highways.

Voters also overwhelmingly supported three amendments that could worsen the medical malpractice crisis rather than improve it.

Amendment 3 will limit the amount of money attorneys can collect from malpractice awards to people who've suffered terrible injuries due to negligent care. But the amendment failed to offer a cap on insurance rates. So, it might hamper the ability of injured patients to obtain legal aid while failing to prescribe lower malpractice insurance rates.Two other health-care amendments, stripping "bad" doctors of their licenses and providing patients with background information on doctors' care records, got a thumbs-up. But they, too, could produce unintended consequences if good physicians are scared out of the state.

These amendments did not end up in the Constitution because they are good public policy, but because of a game of chicken between doctors and attorneys.

Now that they are in the state's bedrock document, the Legislature must make lemonade out of these lemons by pursuing more comprehensive reforms, such as instituting medical malpractice specialty courts to deal with these complex and emotionally charged cases.

Voters also approved an amendment upping the state's minimum wage and indexing future increases to inflation. The goal is to help low-wage workers, but it could hurt businesses, the economy and, consequently, those at the bottom rungs of the employment ladder if an inflationary spiral strikes the state.

The continued use of the constitutional amendment process for measures that should be addressed by the Legislature should be of concern to all Floridians. Amendment 2 approved on Tuesday will help voters better assess future constitutional proposals.

But a more profound reform is needed. Voters should push to get a citizen initiative process in place where they could approve statutes, which could be more easily changed than constitutional amendments.